Grammar Is About Being Understood, Not Being Correct
Grammar is about being understood, and being correct is beside the point. Good grammar communicates. Bad grammar gets in the way. That’s the entire reason it matters.Share on X
I’ve always believed grammar matters, and the reason is practical. Grammar and spelling are how we communicate. Good grammar communicates clearly. Bad grammar muddies the message and makes the reader work to figure out what you meant. That’s the whole case for it.
So over the years I worked to make my grammar as clean as I could, not to impress anyone, but because clean writing conveys meaning better than messy writing. When the mechanics are solid, the reader stops noticing them and starts absorbing what you’re saying. That’s the goal. The grammar disappears and the message gets through.
National Grammar Day falls on March 4, and despite the reputation grammar has for being fussy and joyless, the day is really about something useful: writing in a way that other people can understand.
Watch: 7 Most Common English Grammar Mistakes + TEST - Do you make these mistakes?, AccurateEnglish
Master the Rules, Then Break Them on Purpose
You can’t break a rule effectively until you know it cold. Bad grammar by accident is a mistake. Bad grammar on purpose is a tool.Share on X
I part ways with the grammar police because they want the rules obeyed every time. I want to know them well enough to break them deliberately.
I break grammar rules in my own books on purpose. I use modern language.
I use swear words when they fit, in my own work and in client work when the client wants them. Sometimes I deliberately use a construction that’s technically wrong, for shock value or to drive a point home harder than a correct sentence could. A fragment can hit. A run-on can race. A rule broken with intent does work that a clean sentence cannot.
But that only works if you know the rule you’re breaking. Bad grammar by accident is a mistake that confuses the reader. Bad grammar on purpose is a tool that controls them. The difference is mastery.
The difference between a mistake and a tool is mastery of the rule.
You have to understand the rules fluently before you can break them on purpose, and that’s why I wrote an entire book about deliberately terrible writing, the Awful Writing Handbook. You can’t weaponize bad writing until you understand good writing cold.
Every Author Should Know Their Own Language
This isn’t negotiable for me. Any author should understand the grammar and spelling rules of their own language fluently.
A sentence will be wrong if you don’t, but the bigger reason is that fluency is what gives you choices. If you don’t know the rule, you can’t decide whether to follow it. You’re just guessing, and the reader can tell.
A writer who knows the rules writes with intention. A writer who doesn’t writes by accident and hopes it works out.
You don’t need to memorize every obscure point of usage. You need to know your language well enough that the basics are automatic and the choices are yours. (See also Barron's Essentials of English) That fluency is the foundation everything else sits on.
How to Keep Your Writing Clean Without Going Broke
Knowing grammar and catching every error in a long manuscript are two different skills. Even strong writers miss their own mistakes, because the brain reads what it meant to write. So here’s the practical part.
If you’re a ghostwriter, run client work through an editor. That’s not optional. A client is paying for professional work, and a human editor is part of professional work. For your own personal books, a full editor on every title can get expensive fast, especially if you write quickly and produce a lot.
That’s where tools fill the gap. ProWritingAid and similar tools catch the errors your eye skates past, and they’re far cheaper than a human editor for personal projects.
AI is also useful here. Ask it to find grammar errors and suggest corrections, and it’ll catch a lot. None of these replace a real editor for work that matters most, but for keeping your own books clean on a budget, they pay for themselves. Use the human for the high-stakes work and the tools for everything else.
| Situation | What to use |
|---|---|
| Ghostwritten client work | A human editor, not optional |
| Your own personal books | ProWritingAid and similar tools |
| Quick error sweep | Ask AI to find errors and suggest corrections |
| Work that matters most | A real human editor |
| Everyday habit | Read your work aloud |
How do you mark National Grammar Day?
Notice your own writing for a day. Read back an email or a page of something you wrote and ask whether the grammar is helping the reader or getting in the way. That’s the only question that matters, and most writing fails it in small, fixable ways.
If you want to sharpen up, pick one thing you’re unsure about, the difference you always have to look up, the rule you fake, and learn it. One rule mastered is one more choice you get to make on purpose.
And if you write seriously, build a cleanup habit. Run your work through a tool, read it aloud, and for anything important, get a human editor on it. Grammar is there to make sure the person on the other end gets exactly what you meant. Master it, then bend it when bending serves the reader. That’s what good writers do with the rules.